A get well wish, and the White House digs in.

Sorry to hear that Melania trump was in the hospital having emergency surgery on her kidney. I hope she gets well soon.

I was not surprised, though, to learn that her husband was not by her side for the surgery, and when she needed him most. Apparently her friends were "blind-sided".  Frankly, I am not sure why. You would think that they would know what type of man their friend married by now.

Fellows, I am not sure about you, but I can't imagine my wife going in for surgery where she will be put to sleep and I am not there. The Mrs. would never forgive me, and I wouldn't blame her if she didn't. 

But hey, this is  Donald trump we are talking about. This man thinks of nothing but himself. I suspect that only his daughter, Ivanka (with whom he has a sick obsession) has a shot of being of any importance to him.  And I am pretty sure that he would take the last life-vest if they were the only two people left on a sinking ship. 

Finally, we are now in day five of trump's White House refusing to apologize to the McCain family for what was said about the man at an internal meeting.

Make no mistake, this is all about the leader of that deplorable crew and his unwillingness to apologize for some of the most reprehensible things that he has said  and done in the past.  His White House is more concerned about the leak itself than what was actually said.

He perpetrated a racist lie for years about the former president and refused to apologize to him or his family, and only grudgingly admitted that he was wrong for political expediency. So if I was a member of the McCain family I would not hold my breath.

        

The bottom of the swamp.

The following article is from one of my favorite columnists, Will Bunch, who writes for my hometown paper.

"Novartis is a global pharmaceutical giant that’s headquartered in Switzerland, employs 126,000 people, and pulls in $50 billion a year making newfangled drugs, including the medication that ought to be handed out like candy to the American media in the hyperactive age of Donald Trump: Ritalin. But this icon of Big Pharma prefers to deal with politicians the old-fashioned way.

It buys them.

At least that’s the knock on Novartis in places like Greece — when a decade-long bribery scheme that involved two prime ministers and several cabinet members was described by a government official there as “the biggest scandal since the creation of the Greek state” — or China, where Novartis has been accused of paying doctors to prescribe its drugs, or Turkey, where Novartis is linked to a consulting firm that may have kicked back money to government officials.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should, because there’s growing evidence that Novartis used the same heavy-handed tactics to gain access and influence with the despotic ruler of a backwater banana republic called the United States of America.

It was revealed last week, in a bizarre fashion, that Novartis had paid President Trump’s lawyer and self-described “consigliere,” Michael Cohen, some $1.2 million over the course of 2017 in order to pick the brains of Cohen — taxi-medallion king, phone-threatener extraordinaire, and graduate of America’s Worst Law School™ — for high-level strategy on complex issues like drug-pricing policy.
Or maybe it was because Cohen is one of a handful of people who can speed dial Trump’s personal cellphone. If so, it was slightly depressing to learn that the White House can be bought so cheaply. AT&T, the world’s largest telecommunications firm, paid just $600,000 over roughly the same period of time for Cohen’s deep insights into the button-down mind of our current president, while Korean Aerospace cited the New York attorney’s skill in accounting as why it sent him a $150,000 check last fall, right after the Pentagon delayed a massive Air Force jet-trainer contract the firm is up for. You can draw your own conclusion about the $500,000 linked to a Russian oligarch. 

Those of us rooted in Philadelphia know that pay-to-pay politics is nothing new in America, and in fact our lawmakers and judges have worked hard to ensure that much of it is legal. Still, there’s something especially crass and unseemly about the way Team Trump does it. Big cash payments to an unskilled and sometimes thuggish  “fixer” so close to the president himself — an autocratic ruler who continues to profit from his own business while he runs the country and puts his daughter and son-in-law in a position of great power — is the kind of thing you used to read about in some laughable central Asian dictatorship, Whereverstan, but not the formerly exceptional  U.S. of A. The only thing we’re missing is a glorious military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue…wait, what?
Still, Cohen — and by extension, Trump — have managed to place a uniquely American stamp on our presidential corruption, by making the whole thing look like the lost episode of The Sopranos.

When the FBI recently raided Cohen’s office, home and hotel room, Cohen — who has a long history of family and personal ties to suspected Russian organized-crime figures — put on a wild-patterned sports jacket that looked off the rack from Martin Scorsese’s prop room, and met his associates outside on the street while paparazzi snapped photos that looked like government surveillance shots. It was reported that — in addition to the big-name clients he did land — Cohen was rebuffed by at least one, Ford Motor Co., and one can only imagine his pitch to the executives in Detroit. “Hey, that’s a nice Explorer you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”

Welcome to the Bada Bing‘s new location on K Street.

The comic possibilities of Cohen’s racket shouldn’t obscure the fact that this is potentially a huge story, with Watergate-size implications. “Potentially” because there are still so many questions about the president’s lawyer and his consulting business, not least of which being how confidential business records ended up in the hands of Cohen’s worst enemy — attorney Michael Avenatti, representing purported Trump mistress and adult-film star Stormy Daniels.

But since Avenatti’s surprising scoop has been largely confirmed, there are now two important ways to look at this.

The most immediate concern is, quite simply: What did the president know about Essential Consultants LLC, a Delaware corporation, and when did he know it? Because consider some things we do know about the business of this shell company formed just as Trump was getting elected 45th president of the United States. Its cash inflows included more than a couple million dollars from powerful corporations seeking influence with the U.S. government. At other times, the cash outflows included the $130,000 intended to silence (and doing so quite badly) Stormy Daniels about her alleged Trump liaison, as well as a $1.6 million payout to a former Playboy model which everyone involved insists had nothing to do with the president, even as some pundits ask some very interesting questions.

Did Trump know which companies were hiring Cohen to influence him? Were monies from these influence-seekers somehow connected to the funds that seem to have directly benefited Trump, by solving problems in his personal life? If not, where did the money that paid off Stormy Daniels come from? The powers that be have made it almost impossible to prove the crime of political bribery in modern America. The wrong answers to these questions, though, could make the impossible suddenly seem possible, and raise serious doubts about the survival of Trump’s presidency.

But what if the dollars from Novartis, AT&T, et al, didn’t benefit Trump in any illegal way? What if Michael Cohen simply sold these large corporations a bill of goods, winning huge contracts for high-level access and insights that he then didn’t deliver. There’s a valid argument that what Cohen did after Trump’s surprise victory in November 2016 is no different from how other Trump insiders cashed in — what, for example, is the deal with Qatar paying Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski $500,000 a month? — and what close associates of both Democratic and Republican presidents or top Capitol Hill lawmakers have been doing for many decades. Under this scenario, the work of Essential Consultants is about as shocking as gambling in the back room of a Casablanca nightclub.
Politico’s Playbook, not surprisingly, spoke for the corrupt and contented classes the other day when it published this:

— YES, guys like Michael Cohen routinely get paid amounts like $1.2 million to offer insights about their boss or former boss. Yeah, it’s crazy. But many readers of this newsletter would not have their McMansion in McLean, their BMW, their membership at Army Navy, second homes in Delaware, cigar lockers and endless glasses of Pinot Noir at BLT Steak and Tosca if that kind of stuff didn’t happen. Newsflash: $1.2 million is not even a rounding error for massive corporations. (The smart companies route these deals through law firms.)

 First of all, why are wealthy fixers buying houses in Delaware, of all places? Second of all, both the cynicism expressed here, and the fact that few people are shocked by it, are in and of themselves … shocking. If what Michael Cohen did here is business as usual, and it may well have been, then why must Americans accept a level of business as usual that would look familiar to an Uzbek tinhorn dictator? Especially when it leads to outcomes that hurt everyday Americans.

How so? It’s hard not to notice the companies that hired Cohen got outcomes that were good for them and not for the public. Novartis hired Trump’s lawyer with a goal of keeping prices for prescription drugs artificially high, which is just what happened the other day when Trump broke his campaign promise for Medicare to negotiate with Big Phama. The AT&T lobbyist who hired Cohen got a private dinner with Trump’s FCC chairman Ajit Pai just a month later — and not long before Pai announced the commission was scrapping net neutrality, a cherished goal of Big Telecom.

If America wants to become an exceptional nation, let’s pass some exceptional laws that restrict this kind of influence peddling. Let’s pass a bill to make it clear that the “strategic consulting” performed by Cohen and his ilk is really just old-fashioned lobbying, that needs to be disclosed to the public. And when the new Congress takes its seats next January, it needs to launch an all-out war on big money in politics, including the unwinding of the Citizens United case, even if that requires a constitutional amendment. We don’t know yet what this scandal means for Trump, but we can do some things to prevent the Michael Cohens of the future. Bada bing, bada boom!" [Source]

Mr. Mueller, please hurry. The Sopranos was great on television and we loved it. I am just not true that we are quite ready for the real live version, Washington style. 

*Image from slate.com

CAPTION SATURDAY

I need a caption for this pic.

Pic from pn.org

Open thread.

 It's open thread night in the fields, and I need your thoughts on a few things:

Does anyone care that Donald trump, Jr. is now dating FOX host, Kimberly Guilfoyle?   

Do you believe Charles Payne when he says that he did not hear  when a FOX News analyst smeared John McCain, a man who is terminally ill and a war hero to boot? Sadly, mocking McCain has become a thing of late with trumpbots. 

Is the pro-trump group adviser's Nazi remarks a reflection of the types of people that Donald rump surrounds himself with?

Why is the press calling the return of these Americans from North Korea "historic" when this happened under the Obama administration on numerous occasions.   

Has the trump administration's actions pertaining to the Iran nuclear deal brought us to the brink of a major war in the Middle East? 

Should Gina Haspel be confirmed as the next CIA director given her history with torture?   

Do you believe  that Matt Patricia should get the Detroit Lions head coaching job now that past allegations of sexual misconduct has come to light?  The team is sticking by him for now.

Finally, speaking of sexual misconduct. How harsh do you think the Judge will be in sentencing Bill Cosby? Will he get jail time? And if he does, how long?  The over and under here is at 5 years. 

Holla.

Sleeping while black.

My lord! Here we go again. Now black folks can't even sleep or study while black.

Let's go to New Haven, Connecticut, and to the campus of one of the most Ivy of Ivies, Yale University.

"A white person voices suspicions about an innocuous person of color. Police are summoned. And the encounter is posted on social media, sparking outrage about racial profiling.

In what is becoming an all-too familiar episode, a black Yale University graduate student was interrogated by campus police officers early Tuesday morning after a white student found her sleeping in a common room of their dorm and called police.

The black student, Lolade Siyonbola, posted two videos of the encounter to Facebook, where they have been widely viewed and drawn thousands of comments.

"I deserve to be here. I pay tuition like everybody else," an annoyed Siyonbola told responding officers in one video after they asked for her ID. "I'm not going to justify my existence here."

The incident is one of several in recent weeks in which police have been called on people of color for seemingly harmless acts. In one of the most recent, three black women were detained while leaving their California Airbnb after a neighbor called police, thinking they were burglars. Last month two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia after a manager called 911 on them because they didn't order anything. 

According to Siyonbola, she was working on a paper in the Hall of Graduate Studies when she fell asleep in a common room. Another female student came in, turned on the lights and told her, "You're not supposed to be sleeping here. I'm going to call the police."

Siyonbola pulled out her phone and recorded 54 seconds of a hallway encounter with the unidentified student, who told her, "I have every right to call the police. You cannot sleep in that room."

After two white police officers arrived and began questioning her in a stairwell, Siyonbola posted 17 minutes of their encounter to Facebook Live.

When Siyonbola asked them about the complaint, one officer said, "She called us (and) said there's somebody who appeared they weren't ... where they were supposed to be."

The 34-year-old grad student in African Studies unlocked her dorm-room door in front of police to show that she lived there, but they still asked for her ID. "We're in a Yale building and we need to make sure that you belong here," the other officer told her." [Watch here]

"Jesus take the wheel."  

I want to blame this all on the trump effect, but let's be honest, this has been going on for a long time, and it will continue long after trump is gone. Although, granted, it has gotten worse under trump, and your typical racist next door certainly feels more empowered and emboldened enough to let their racism flag fly. 

*Pic from thegrio.com 

A hot mess.

• 

This Michael Cohen Donald trump fiasco is just getting crazier and crazier.

I don't know where this is all going to end, but I think we can all agree that we are now in uncharted waters. One thing we do know though is this: trump's minions will stick with him no matter what.

 "So let’s review: Stormy Daniels‘ lawyer Michael Avenatti put out a document with multiple new allegations about Michael Cohen. One of them concerned $500,000 Cohen received from a company run by a Russian oligarch.

CNN subsequently reported this oligarch was questioned by Mueller’s team over payments to Cohen, and The Daily Beast followed up with its own report confirming the payment.

Another allegation in the document Avenatti shared is multiple payments from AT&T to Cohen’s Essential Consultants, LLC.

Now AT&T has confirmed the payment:" [Source]

Wow! Half a million big ones from a Russian oligarch to trump's personal lawyer and we are supposed to believe that there was no collusion? I don't think so.

But that's not all. Apparently there is more to that story about the GOP fundraiser and the Playboy model than we were led to believe.

Here is John Ziegler's take on it:

"If a story doesn’t add up, there is almost always a major problem with that narrative. And often, the biggest lies are both obvious and right out in the open. These are two basic principles of understanding humanity which the modern media has seemingly forgotten, especially when it comes to covering President Donald Trump.

There is no better evidence of this reality than the amazing piece posted today by New York Magazine which outlines a very convincing theory that the media recently bought into an obvious myth in a way which may have inadvertently protected Trump from perhaps his biggest scandal yet.

Recently we were told that a previously little-known GOP fundraiser named Elliott Broidy was immediately forced to resign from his position in the party because it was revealed that he had paid, through Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, former Playboy model Shera Bechard $1.6 million to cover up an affair and possible abortion. My “blink” reaction on Twitter to this story was that it did not add up, though even I did not immediately conclude, as Paul Campos has in this piece, that Broidy was actually taking the fall for Trump himself.

After reading Campos’ in-depth analysis, we should all be embarrassed that we ever gave Broidy’s narrative even the slightest bit of credibility. Campos systematically decimates every aspect of the original unrealistic storyline like it was an episode of Sharknado. Quite literally, there is not one aspect of the current “plot” which makes sense, and only one element which doesn’t totally fit Campos’ alternative theory that it was really Trump, and not Broidy, who impregnated a Playboy model.

I always start at the most basic human level when evaluating the plausibility of any narrative which doesn’t at least pass the smell test. What struck me first here was that it seemed impossible that Broidy, and older, non-famous, long-married man would have had found himself in a situation in which he impregnated a top Playboy model to begin with.

Then there was also the issue of why he would pay so much money to cover up something which would not have had that much impact on his life if it had somehow come out naturally. It is important to note that there is no current evidence that his wife has even left him over this “revelation.”
But Campos goes far deeper in deconstructing the absurd current conventional wisdom about what supposedly happened here. When you look at the details (things which the modern media all-to-often has neither the time nor the wisdom to fully evaluate) of the business/legal aspects, it is actually laughable that it has taken this long for a mainstream media outlet to seriously question Broidy’s narrative.

Specifically, when you look at the motives of everyone involved in this, it all makes far more sense for Trump to have had the affair and possibly facilitated an abortion, Cohen to turn the super-rich Briody to pay Bechard off, and for Briody to take the blame to protect Trump while also obtaining huge leverage over the president of the United States, which was theoretically worth far more than $1.6 million to him." [Source]

Today, knowing that it would blow up the news cycle, Donald trump announced that he is pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. He did it because he wanted us to talk about something else besides his distasteful and reckless behavior. He could care less about foreign policy and the impact on his decisions on the safety of the American people who elected him.   

Sadly, looking at the way that the media has been covering the story, it looks like he might have gotten his wish. 

*Pic from dailykos.com

Next time wave to the nervous white lady.

And now, the latest case of living while black in America.

"Kells Fyffe-Marshall

STORY TIME: During our time in Cali we have been staying at an Airbnb. The 30th was our second morning and at about 11am we checked out. The four of us packed our bags, locked up the house and left. As you can see 3 of us were Black. About 10 seconds later we were surrounded by 7 cop cars. The officers came out of their cars demanding us to put our hands in the air. They informed us that there was also a helicopter tracking us. They locked down the neighborhood and had us standing in the street. Why? A neighbour across the street saw 3 black people packing luggage into their car and assumed we were stealing from the house. She then called the police.

At first we joked about the misunderstanding and took photos and videos along the way.
About 20 minutes into this misunderstanding it escalated almost instantly. Their Sergeant arrived... he explained they didn’t know what Airbnb was. He insisted that we were lying about it and said we had to prove it. We showed them the booking confirmations and phoned the landlord... because they didn’t know what she looked like on the other end to confirm it was her.. they detained us - because they were investigating a felony charge - for 45 minutes while they figured it out.

We have been dealing with different emotions and you want to laugh about this but it’s not funny. The trauma is real. I've been angry, fustrated and sad. I was later detained at the airport. This is insanity.
The cops admit that the woman’s reason for calling the police was because we didn’t WAVE to her as she looked at us putting our luggage into our car from her lawn.
#wedidntwave #arighttoberight #racialprofiling privilege #rightourstories #therevolution #whenyoupulloverfilmmakers @directedbykells
@iamdonisha @komiolaf @ahutchphoto Nisha Rebel Ashlee Hutchinson"

 

Is Airbnb really worth it? You Negroes need to start going to regular old fashion hotels. With all these nervous white folks in America you might not return home after your planned vacation at one of those Airbnb spots.    

Shout out to my twitter family for turning me on to this story. One of the victims posted her experience on social media. [Story]

 

CAPTION SATURDAY.

• 

I need a caption for this pic.

*Pic from mediamatters.org 

Please help me, there are Negroes in my space.

• 

At some point racist white people have to realize that the police (and those in authority) should not be their personal gestapo to check the "evil" brown people around them to satisfy their own ignorance and fears.

It's happening over and over again. White people in public spaces do not feel comfortable around people of color, and rather than check their own issues, they call for help.

The latest in this ongoing American tragedy took place in Colorado.

 "This week, two prospective CSU students, both Native American, had the police called on them during a campus tour simply for being quiet. Although the boys were not arrested, they were separated from their group and unable to continue the tour.

This incident is not uncommon. It is a result of society’s unconscious bias against people of color, especially men. CSU students need to acknowledge these biases and take what happened to those boys in the tour seriously – and they need to work on doing better.

The event on CSU’s campus comes on the heels of two black men being arrested a few weeks ago for simply sitting in a Starbucks after they had the police called on them by a store manager for “looking suspicious”. The men did not order anything, as they were waiting for a friend to join them. The video has been viewed over 11 million times, and has created national controversy.

Unconscious biases, also known as implicit bias, are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups, and these biases stem from one’s tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing.

Please stop calling the police on people of color simply because you think they look suspicious or out of place. Especially when they are doing completely normal things.

The fear of those different than us, especially from the white majority, is perpetuated by unfamiliarity and the media portraying people of color as dangerous.

And CSU and the Fort Collins community is no different than other predominantly white communities when it comes to displaying unconscious bias against people of color. The incident this week has brought the issue into our local spotlight as well.

According to a public post from the woman whose sons were reported to the police, it was another mother in the group who called them, saying the boys “made her nervous.” The police arrived and pulled them out the group. After finding nothing wrong, they left, thus leaving the boys separated from the group and unable to continue the tour.

They returned home to New Mexico “embarrassed and disappointed” wrote their mother.
The school addressed the incident in a mass email Wednesday evening writing “the fact these students felt unwelcome on our campus while here as visitors runs counter to our Principles of Community.” [Source]

Hello officer, two Native American men are in our group and they are way too silent and serious for my liking.  Please do something about it, ASAP.

Unbelievable!

Open thread Wednesday.

It's open thread Wednesday.

I need your thought on a few things that I was thinking about, and whatever else is on your mind.

Would it be a god idea for Kanye and his buddy president trump to hold a race relations  summit at the White House? (I personally think that it would be comedy gold.)

What will the Apprentice records reveals about Mr. trump?

Do you believe that Michael Avenatti is overexposing himself? 

Why do you think the murder of a young white couple in their home got so much national attention, when poor people of color are murdered every day and it barely gets a mention in the local papers?

Was the professional football team in Washington pimping out their cheerleaders to big donors? 

Are these two white sorority girls racist for proudly posting videos dropping the n word ending in ga and not er? (And what do you think of their defense?)

What does the recent shake-up of the trump legal team mean?

Is there a Doctor in the house?

Now that we know that Dr. Ronny Jackson was a complete fraud, and that president trump might have dictated the lines that was written about his heath ("astonishingly good health") in the past, I think that a legitimate doctor should now do an independent checkup of Mr. trump. The American people have a right to know.

trump's doctors have been in the news a lot lately. Today we found out that trump's security team "raided" the offices of his former physician after trump heard him telling the world that trump used a hair growth drug to keep the rest of his orangeish locks from falling out. You can't make this stuff up folks.

"President Donald Trump's New York doctor tells NBC News the president's medical records were taken from his office in a February 2017 "raid" by Trump's longtime bodyguard, the Trump Organization's top lawyer and a third, large man.

Dr. Harold Bornstein said his office was raided two days after he told The New York Times he had for years prescribed Trump the hair growth medicine Propecia.

The 25- to 30-minute incident left Bornstein feeling "raped, frightened and sad," he said. He added that he was not given a form authorizing that the records be released signed by Trump, which would be a violation of patient privacy law."

Wow, easy there doc! "Raped" is a strong word. But I get it. trump used the power of his presidency to protect the secret of his hair, and that should scare all of us. 

Finally, just your friendly reminder that we do not live in a post-racial country and that black folks are still getting the business from racist on a daily basis here in America. 

I will start in New York. (Yep, New York)

"It was an unsolicited homecoming that left Bronx native Darren Martin unsettled.

After spending several years working on Capitol Hill and in the White House with the Obama Administration, Martin recently made the move back to New York, getting a job with the city and finding a unit in a 5-story walk-up on the Upper West Side.

On moving day this past Friday, Martin got an unexpected visit from the NYPD.

“I’m in my apartment but you know – you can’t go nowhere without the cops following me,” Martin said during the encounter live streamed via Instagram.

Turns out, someone called 911 to report a “burglary in progress” and the suspect was the building’s brand new tenant – Martin.

“Somebody called the cops on me in my own building,” he told viewers who were tuning in to watch the live video. “About how many are ya’ll? About six of ya’ll showed up, rolled up on me.”
He has a packed work schedule and that was the only time he had to move into the building.
“I didn’t really think anyone was going to call the cops on me because I mean – I was moving into the building.”

In the live video which Martin shared on Facebook and Twitter, one of the responding officers cranks the volume on a 2-way radio where a dispatcher could be heard describing the call.
“Somebody was trying to break in the door” with a “possible weapon,” the dispatcher said, describing the weapon as a “large tool.” [Video here]

Let's stay on the East Coast for our next story.

"A New Jersey high school football coach says he lost his job because he had too many black players on the team.

Nick Strom told the Cherry Hill Courier-Post that he has been fired as coach of the town's Camden Catholic High School team despite a 34-6 record over four years. He has also been placed on administrative leave as a history teacher. The school disputes that his firing has anything to do with race.

"I think this is from me not conforming with their viewpoints on what they want the student body and the football team to look like," Strom said, according to the Courier Post. "I've tried to build this program into one that's based on kids being of ability, high character and high grades. 

"From day one, the administration told me they did not approve of the ratio of black to white students."

Strom, who is white, told the newspaper that half of the team is made up of minorities. He said the race ratio of the team came up "10 to 20 times" with the administration.

"When I'd have a list of potential freshmen, the first question I'd be asked is if they were white or black," he said, according to the Courier-Post. "I was confused about why the question was, 'How can we get more white players in the program or on the field?'"
School president Mary Whipkey denied Strom's allegations on Monday.

"We are not that kind of environment and we take it very seriously when those accusations are made," Whipkey told the Courier-Post. "This is a special community here. We embrace our diversity here. Those accusations are not true."

Strom told the newspaper that he plans to file a grievance with the teachers' union." [Source]

Let's be clear, when Mary says that she embraces diversity, what she really means is that as long as the number of Negroes don't get too high, they can live with them.